Strictly - a Pas de Deux

She danced the Argentinian tango
It was nineteen eighty-two
With Leopoldo Galtieri
And a consid’rable naval crew
She kicked him smack in the Malvinas
Which made it hard for him to dance
His frightened band of teenage conscripts
Never really stood a chance

She danced the colliery fandango
It was nineteen eighty-four
Her partner: Barnsley’s own King Arthur
Who planned to even up the score
She hit him hard right in his Orgreave
She didn’t like the price of coal
Bent coppers, riot shields and truncheons
Now all our lads are on the dole

She danced the polka in the White House
With Ronald Reagan and his Nancy
Whilst doing foxy trots with Gorbachev
Which made her footwork rather fancy
She said she’d wave the flag for Britain
And get the country off its knees
But nowdays all of British business
Is owned by companies overseas

She danced the Greater London Charleston
It was nineteen eighty-six
Red Ken was panicked at the disco
Foul play and cheating, dirty tricks
A twentieth-century gerrymander
She whacked the councils that were leftly
By now we called her Iron Lady
And she manoeuvred very deftly

(ii)

She danced an intricate Gay Gordons
In eighty-seven, I recall
With an outraged Peter Tatchell
Whose protests hit a blue stone wall
She smacked him squarely in the jawbone
With her Section Twenty-Eight
Which taught the children of the Nineties
You’re only normal if you’re straight

She danced the poll tax tarantella
It was nineteen-ninety, spring
More than one hundred thousand Britons
Came out and did the protest thing
Oh she was arrogant and haughty
She said “this lady’s not for turning”
Buck House had private reservations
And Trafalgar Square was burning

She trips an ageing danse macabre
Here now in two thousand and ten
Denis has shuffled off the dance floor
And it is left for other men
Her little love-child David Cameron
And his unlikely partner Nicky
Have taken up the Margaret rhythm
And find the dance is rather tricky.